Ever given it a thought How to make your place in the organization? How to navigate your path forward? Ever reflected on your day-to-day working style?
Linchpin by Seth Godin offers insights on a forgotten topic. The book is not a step-by-step guide either. It basically introduces you to powerful ideas. Possible directions in which you can think.
Powerful Ideas and Linchpin Traits:
The system we grew up with is based on a simple formula: Do your job. Show up. Work Hard. Listen to the boss. Stick it out. Be part of the system. You'll be rewarded. That's a scam. There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do.
Competitive advantage in the age of automation. The market demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy, capable of seeing things as they are and negotiating multiple priorities as she makes useful decisions without angst. Flexible in the face of change, resilient in the face of confusion.
We've bought into a model that taught us to embrace the system, to spend for pleasure, and to separate ourselves from our work. We've been taught that this approach works, but it doesn't. It is the disconnect that causes stress.
What we need and what the school doesn't teach is to question the status quo, take initiative and become remarkable artists, and interact with transparency.
We spend our time and energy trying to perfect our craft, but we don't focus on the skills and interactions that will allow us to stand out and become indispensable to our organizations.
Fearless doesn't really mean "without fear". What it means in practice is, "unafraid of things that one shouldn't be afraid of." The fear is about an imagined threat, so avoiding the fear actually allows you to accomplish things.
The Linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds.
The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.
Lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny. The lizard brain is the reason you're afraid, the reason you don't do all the art you can, the reason you don't ship when you can. The lizard brain is the source of resistance.
The daemon is the source of great ideas, groundbreaking insights, generosity, love, connection, and kindness.
The road to comfort is crowded and it rarely gets you there. Ironically, it's those who seek discomfort that are able to make a difference and find their footing.
Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you're doing something that others were unlikely to do because they're busy hiding out in the comfortable zone. When your uncomfortable actions lead to success, the organization rewards you and brings you back for more.
Your work is to do the work, not to do your job. Your job is about following instructions; the work is about making a difference. Your work is to ship. Ship things that make change.
The difference between a successful artist and a failed one happens after the idea is hatched. The difference is the race to completion. Did you finish?
Anxiety makes it impossible to do the art, because it feeds the resistance, giving the lizard brain insane power over us. It's impossible to be a linchpin if you agree to feed your anxiety.
The ability to see the world as it begins with an understanding that perhaps it's not your job to change what can't be changed. Particularly if the act of working on that change harms you and your goals in the process.
The linchpin has figured out that we get only a certain number of brain cycles to spend each day. Spending even one on a situation out of our control has a significant opportunity cost.
Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.
The stressful part is hoping. Hoping against hope that your plane will arrive, that you won't miss it, that your seat won't be given away, that you won't crash, that you'll land close to on time. And the reason is your nostalgia for the future. You've fallen in love with a described outcome, and at every stage along the way, it appears that hope and will, and effort on your part might be able to maintain the future quo.
Don't let your circumstances or habits rule your choices today. Become a master of yourself and use your willpower to choose.
The above mentioned are some of the key excerpts from the book. There is lot more to the book. One of those books that I'll most likely re-pick time and again to seek answers.
The system trains us to fit in. We have a choice and it is in our control to stand out. 😀